Agreed on the beard!
Sure, it was a bit of fanservice but it was well done and from what I’m gathering, it’s not causing any huge ripples in the show’s trajectory.
I could have done with much more time in/with the North, myself. Plus a beard.
But it was a good premiere. I thought they mucked up the Blood and Cheese moment a bit with the altered version of the mother’s choice being more confusing than anything, but the basics of the situation are still so gnarly that it packs a wallop even at like 5/6 of the original nastiness.
Pumped for the season. People are plotting over elaborate maps, and as long as there are multiple scenes per episode of that, I tend to be a pretty happy camper.
I’m not so sure it’s fan-service as an attempted bit of salvage.
Also … HUGH!!! I paused the episode, fetched a hammer, and held it up high for his appearance. I thought it would be Cavill, though.
I do not understand why they changed Blood and Cheese. Helaena being forced to make a choice is a huge part of that scene, and everyone in King’s Landing would know which of the two kids is older/bigger.
**Then again, I always suspected that there was no way they’d present the scene as written. There are some lines, even for ASOIAF adaptations, and it crosses a few of them.
****Anyone else get the impression that the royal quarters were empty of attendants because Queen Hotfeet had dismissed them all? I thought her sending them away from her bath (in addition to her feeling icky and unclean) was because she did not trust them, and that it’s reasonable to assume that went on to dismiss everyone Larys had installed.
I will have that map table they have on Dragonstone. It is known.
Yeah, she totally sent the ones at her bath away because clubfoot said he picked them all personally. As for the rest…I dunno. There was the one that they scared away.
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That’s basically the subtitle of the show!
Taking this from the prior spoiler discussion thread:
The timeline of the Dance of the Dragons
2 The Dance of the Dragons
2.1 The Small Council Meeting
2.2 Coronation of Aegon II
2.3 The Black Council and Coronation of Rhaenyra
END OF SEASON ONE
2.4 Assault on Harrenhal
2.5 The Dance over Shipbreaker Bay[moved ahead in time to season one]
2.6 Blood and Cheese
2.7 Civil war in the Riverlands
2.8 The new green Hand
2.9 Duel of the Cargyll Twins
2.10 Duskendale and Rook’s Rest
2.11 The Dragonseeds
2.12 Battle of the Gullet
2.13 Battle of the Honeywine
2.14 The Red Fork and the Fishfeed
2.15 Fall of King’s Landing
2.16 The Red Kraken
2.17 Butcher’s Ball
2.18 First Tumbleton
2.19 Fall of Dragonstone
2.20 Battle Above the Gods Eye
2.21 Storming of the Dragonpit (NOTE: This is when Rhaenyra is driven from King’s Landing)
2.22 Second Tumbleton
2.23 Rhaenyra’s Death
2.24 Moon of the Three Kings
2.25 Battle of the Kingsroad
2.26 Aegon II’s Death
3 Aftermath
3.1 The False Dawn
3.2 Hour of the Wolf
3.3 Regency of Aegon III
3.4 Changed views on inheritance
I wish we had some concrete answer as to how long this show will run for. It seemed to me that 30-35 episodes was about the sweet spot, but there certainly are enough battles to pad out more seasons (Butcher’s Ball, which is just one entry above, actually has enough fights and important deaths to comprise half a season all by itself … assuming you showed it all).
I still think that Rhaenyra’s taking King’s Landing would have been a natural season ending point and her losing King’s Landing is another one, but other than those two, I’m at a loss as to what plot points would be “season-enders.”
From the other thread:
I can’t be sure of the exact numbers, but…nailed it!
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Looks like we are gettings some Blackwood on Bracken action next week. I’m excited to be getting out of the capital and do some free roaming on the world map, as it were.
Christ, it’s so hard to not answer questions in the non-spoiler thread!
Oh yeah, I’ve had to catch myself a few times.
I ended up re-reading F&B between the start of S2E1 and Sunday night’s episode (which I watched last night, thanks to COVID). I continue to think the show does a disservice to both Alicent and Rhaenyra by trying to have their cake and eat it too. Last night’s episode was full-blown wrt that. The clear and unsubtle intent is that, left to their own devices, the two Queens would happily work this out, but for those darn men. When men get sway - you get the Blackwood and Bracken massacre. Imbeciles are on both councils, pushing and pushing and pushing (poorly, with no detail or tactical acumen) for war, even though the core disagreement causing this is specifically between Alicent and Rhaenyra on who is the rightful heir and why.
It weakens their characters to make them observers to events they drove in the books, in the name of “agency.” I whined about this last season, but in the writer-room drive to absolve them of the crimes for which they commit (and will commit, oh my god), they remove agency from both characters so others can be easily blamed. It’s weird. I can’t wait to see how the show handles Rhaenyra in King’s Landing - where she is absolutely cruel, tyrannical, and a terrible leader/strategist in the story. In the book, women are heroic and despotic, cruel and virtuous, leaders and can be led. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t rampant misogyny and patriarchal intent - there is, and a smarter show could more effectively nestle that in here, without making the two most dominant characters at this stage of the war passive. I knew exactly how their meeting (how ridiculous a conceit) in the Great Sept would go.
Now, for the second time in four episodes, the realm plunges heedlessly into a catastrophic war because a powerful woman holds the balance of power in her hands (Rhaenys [and Melys] last season, Alicent in the third episode) and could have ended it RIGHT THERE. Both scenes added for the TV show.
Anyways, I did appreciate the full display of Aemond’s business…fair play, credit to the actor for his metaphorical balls. It’s also always a pleasure to see Sir Simon Beale, and I really enjoyed the Harrenhal scenes.
EDIT: Was that Ulf in the brothel? I didn’t catch his name for the public shit talking he was doing in a tavern in KL.
I view the emphasis on misunderstandings as trying to play up the tragedy aspect, rather than pushing a feminist agenda. For all the “softening” of the characterizations in the book - which does not actually characterize anyone in strict good/bad terms…well, maybe a few people are explicitly bad - it’s not as though Alicent or Rhaenyra come off looking very good in the show.
But, it is a fine line they walk with the misunderstandings, because it tips over from tragedy to farce rather easily. And yes, the conceit to give the queens a scene together was rather flimsy, in the exact same way that it was when they contrived bascially the same scene between Tyrion and Jaime in GOT’s later run. I can accept it, because the actresses are good together and have spent too much time cooped up with the same groups of councillors to bounce off. More than the logistics, the part I find less believable is how quickly Rhaenyra has cooled off from the (checks notes)…murder of her son. It’s like they had all of last season build up to that great shot of her turning to the camera looking fully vengeful, and then changed their mind about wanting her in that mode and just flipped her back to a more measured stance without enough context for it.
I think they’ve been doing a great job with the queens, personally. It’s a story about friendship and what has gotten in the way, as they’ve been either told what to do or been told what they are - marry the king, you will be the queen - so I can understand how they might not always be the most swingiest dick in the room, because that’s not who they are. The scene in the Sept was a great reminder that they once cared for each other and things have a way of getting way out of hand. As for Rhaenyra at the end of S1 vs now, in the first episode after being silent and working through her grief, she didn’t ask for wanton murder, she said she wanted Aemond dead. That Daemon went ahead and attempted that and the result was another dead child (and while Aemond is Alicent’s kid, he’s at least an adult at this point) definitely cooled her anger and gave her a little more temperance and patience when it comes to the whole war thing.
The gamesmanship and chess moving doubly shows the human nature for half-assing it, or as Mike from Breaking Bad would say “no time for half-measures”. We all talk big, that we’d “run into the school to defend the kids from a shooter” and all that bluster, but I think when it comes down to it, most people don’t want to actually fight. They’d rather half-measure and half-measure until fighting is inevitable, rather than straight up burn those motherfuckers themselves when they have them dead to rights. Whole measures are great cinema and characters like Daemon is a great example, but that’s not how people operate when lives are at stake; especially when they’d be the ones doing the murdering.
Honestly, it reminds me of our day and age: everyone knows what the fuck needs to be done to this Trump guy, but we all are letting someone else not do it. And it’s fucking infuriating. We are living in the age of Half-measures, and so nothing, no law, no justice, feels like it’s getting done.
That’s one way of looking at it. But the entire rest of the series is going to be devoted to a whole lot of people taking a whole lot of whole-ass measures, and just how horrific that can get.
Yeah, and it’ll be fucking rad. Criston and Aegon ain’t fucking around next episode - though Aegon is definitely gonna find out.
Loving the glimpses of Hugh the Hammer
Hated the Rhaenyra meeting with Allicent scene. Hated it.
Because it was dumb?